Stage-based sales forecasting has some obvious advantages. It seems easy and intuitive to establish the probability of winning a sale when your forecasts mirror your sales process. The details depend on your business, but suppose you have a 10-step sales process and you’ve mapped a 10% chance of winning to each step. “Customer sees product demo” is step number 7, and when the demo is complete, you report that the probability of your company winning the sale is now at 70%. This 70% probability of winning the sale is then factored into your weighted sales forecasts.

But stage-based sales forecasting can be misleading and even reduce your sales effectiveness. Stage-based forecasting is inherently salesperson-focused, rather than customer-focused. Getting to step #7 in your sales process does not necessarily mean that you have a 70% chance of winning. Thinking from the perspective of stage-based sales forecasting may be distracting you from important elements of the sales environment, such as the position of each key decision-maker and what your competition is up to.

When one is working daily with a stage-based forecasting methodology, it’s natural for a salesperson to end up thinking along the lines of “How can I get the customer to see our product?”, rather than “How can I understand what the customer is trying to achieve, and then position our company to reach that goal for them?”

From the customer’s perspective, especially in the complex B2B sales world, they are not just shopping for something new. The customer is trying to solve a problem. Rushing into a product demo for the sake of achieving step 7 in your sales process does little to ensure that your solution is in line with the customer’s needs. In fact, it can be detrimental to the deal; the opposite of improving your odds by 10%.

You don’t necessarily increase your chances of winning a sale simply by getting to the next step in your sales process. It’s the other way around—the ideal next step in your sales process should be to do what it takes to increase your chances of winning. The distinction is both ideological and practical.

Sure, you have a process that has been fine-tuned for your industry; it has been tested and proven. But the sales process and the probability of winning a sale do not always march in lock-step. In reality, the sales cycle follows the buying cycle, and must adapt to the unique sales environment of each opportunity.

The best measure of the probability of winning a sale comes from establishing the customer’s needs and truly understanding their goals, timeline, budget, limitations, buying process and the obstacles that stand in the way of being able to make a purchasing decision. There is also the matter of where your competition stands in any deal. If your sales forecasts are going to be accurate and reliable, these factors must be taken into account by your sales forecasting method.

What gets measured gets done, as they say. Is your company measuring sales process or the real probability of winning sales?

Although he didn’t intend it this way, Newton’s law on action and reaction works well when we try to unravel the sales process. The sales process is a reaction to the buying process.

The mantra of “the customer comes first,” leads to the conclusion that the deliberate steps defining the buying process should initiate responses from the salesperson that form the sales process. The OPM Sales Methodology works on the assumption that the sales process is a reaction to the buying process.

If the buyer is concerned, understand the concern and work to eliminate it. If the customer wants to know more, provide the information and explain it. If the customer wants proof, provide the evidence and references to back it up. If the customer wants a better deal, reconstruct the deal and prove that it is better.

Cause and effect, give and take, push and pull, action and reaction—whatever you want to call it, the salesperson has to be adaptable to every nuance of the customer’s process and any change in direction it may take.

–Excerpt from OPM: Opportunity Portfolio Management, the upcoming book.

Will technology ever make the salesperson obsolete? In short, absolutely not.

This is a common refrain at every step in technological advancement. Back in the late 1990s, there were whispers of how Internet technology would remove the salesperson from the transaction between buyer and seller. Now, over a decade later, we know that is not the case.

For the buyer, Internet technology allows them to conduct research on their own (with popular and trusted review websites like CNET, and Consumer Reports), and go through early phases of their buying cycle without contacting any vendors.

But technology also plays a big role in helping the salesperson achieve their goals. Advances in technology help salespeople reach prospective customers better, and provide the tools to manage a salesperson’s day-to-day workload.

Technology is neither the buyer, nor the salesperson’s enemy; it facilitates both the buying and selling process. In fact, technology is even right at the core of what we do here at SalesWays. The sales tools we develop at SalesWays allow salespeople to expand their opportunity portfolio, driving up overall value, and bringing them the results they are looking for.

So, technology is not going to replace the salesperson or leave them behind; for those adopting the best tools, technology will propel them even further toward their goals.